Irish Nationalism Quotes

Give Ireland back to the Irish, don't make them have to take it away.

The British Government has no right in Ireland, never had any right in Ireland, and never can have any right in Ireland.

Let us free Ireland! Never mind such base, carnal thoughts as concern work and wages, healthy homes, or lives unclouded by poverty. Let us free Ireland! The rackrenting landlord; is he not also an Irishman, and wherefore should we hate him? Nay, let us not speak harshly of our brother – yea, even when he raises our rent …. “With the Green Flag floating o’er us” and an ever-increasing army of unemployed workers walking about under the Green Flag, wishing they had something to eat. Same as now! Whoop it up for liberty!

Like a lot of Irish households we read a lot of Irish history. It was almost Soviet, raising the next generation with a mythic view of their history.

Stop at home. Arm for Ireland. Fight for Ireland and no other land.

Advance the cause of Ireland’s national independence by … the discontinuance of anything tending towards the Anglicization of Ireland … The development of an Irish foreign policy.

They have nothing in their whole imperial arsenal that can break the spirit of one Irishman who doesn't want to be broken.

As a Nationalist, I do not regard as entirely palatable the idea that forever and a day Ireland's voice should be excluded from the councils of an empire which the genius and valor of her sons have done so much to build up and of which she is to remain

England cannot afford to go on with Irishmen in her Parliament.

To quell all nations - to dethrone all Kings, and plant the Tree of Liberty in our Irish land.

Whether on the scaffold high Or on the battle-field we die, Oh, what matter, when for Erin dear we fall.

The moment the very name of Ireland is mentioned, the English seem to bid adieu to common feeling, common prudence, and common sense, and to act with the barbarity of tyrants, and the fantasy of idiots.

Every publisher or agent I've ever met told me the same thing - that Irish readers don't want to read about the bad old days of the Troubles; neither do the English and Americans - they only want to read about the Ireland of The Quiet Man, when red-haired widows are riding bicycles and everyone else is on a horse.

Ireland was almost constantly agitated by rebellions and insurrections, which, although not always taking their rise from the difference of religious opinions, between the English and Irish, were aggravated and rendered more bitter and irreconcilable from that cause.

I am a political prisoner. I am a political prisoner because I am a casualty of a perennial war that is being fought between the oppressed Irish people and an alien, oppressive, unwanted regime that refuses to withdraw from our land.

Is there to be no living Irish nation?

Yeats, protected to some extent by the Nationalistic movement, wrote out of a somewhat protected world, and so his work does not touch life deeply.

Repeal and Repeal alone is and must be the grand basis for all future operations, hit or miss, win or lose. The people will take nothing short of that …. I say there can be no other basis for association [of Ireland with Britain] save the Repeal, the glorious Repeal

The glory of the old Irish nation, which in our hour will grow young and strong again. Should we fail, the country will not be worth more than it is now. The sword of famine is less sparing than the bayonet of the soldier.

God save Ireland, said the heroes God save Ireland said they all. Whether on the scaffold high, Or the battle field we die O’ what matter when for Ireland dear we fall.

We went out to break the connection between this country and the British Empire, and to establish an Irish Republic …. We succeeded in proving that Irishmen are ready to die endeavoring to win for Ireland those national rights which the British Government has been asking them to die to win for Belgium. As long as that remains the case, the cause of Irish freedom is safe…. I personally thank God that I have lived to see the day when thousands of Irish men and boys, and hundreds of Irish women and girls, were ready to affirm that truth, and to attest it with their lives if need be.

Altho that is so, Ireland has always denied and Ireland still denies that the Union was binding upon her either legally or morally. And here on this historic occasion we have assembled to renew our protest and to place it upon record.

If one Catholic church is burned down, we Irish will turn New York into another Moscow.

Many of the Victorian and Edwardian activists who campaigned for Irish home rule, for instance, also wanted what they called 'home rule all round': separate parliaments not simply for Ireland but also for the Scots and the Welsh - and for the English.

Why should Ireland be treated as a geographical fragment of England - Ireland is not a geographical fragment, but a nation.